In my primary school they taught us how to fill in our pepeha. It was a piece of A4 paper, with blank spaces for you to fill in your details. When I’m figuring out the order of my pepeha, I still mutter it the same way I did when I was ten. Maunga, Awa, Marae, Hapū, Iwi, Waka. To know your pepeha is to know who you are in relation to your location: this is our river that we swim in in the summer, this is my maunga beneath which we shelter in the winter, this is the marae that my family have lived on for a very long time. Knowing my pepeha is second nature.

Last year I went through a process of self-discovery in wānanga, a year long period of development with a group of young Māori from all over the country. It was during my time with this rōpu that I made the decision to start a journey that would hopefully lead towards getting my first piece of tā moko done. Starting a moko journey for me was a call for the strength of my whakapapa, and a compass to lead me towards those points I call upon in my pepeha. I’m still young, not yet fluent in Te Reo Māori, and stuck far away from home while I study. While these factors still make me hesitate, ultimately, I decided this was right for me.

The phone call to Pāpā was the first step in this journey I had decided to take. Probably the most important question is about Whakapapa. When my dad brought up Hinepūkohurangi, I contemplated for the first time what it would mean to have her represented on my skin. Hinepūkohurangi is our tipuna and she is the atua of the mist. She blankets Papatūānuku with her long white hair.

Our pūrakau say that Ngāi Tūhoe came from the union of Hinepūkohurangi and Te Maunga – who was the high hills and mountains. This makes logical sense for us, an iwi born in the tall mist-shrouded hills of Te Urewera. We are “Ngā Tamariki o te Kohu” – the Children of the Mist. My whānau are very good at navigating its many tracks, and knowledgeable on all the kai our whenua has to offer.

I have also traced the whakapapa of Mataatua waka, which brought my ancestors to Te Moana a Toi which follows. Wekanui and Irakewa had three children, Puhi, Muriwai, and Toroa. Toroa and Kake-Pikitia had a daughter who was Wairaka. Wairaka’s son was Tamatea Ki Te Huatahi, and with Paewhiti (who was the daughter of the famed Taneatua), Tamatea Ki Te Huatahi had three sons and a daughter. The youngest of the lot was Tūhoe-Pōtiki, the baby of the family, and it is from him that the name Ngāi Tūhoe comes. Quite literally this translates as “the descendants of Tūhoe”. Together these accounts tell the story of our iwi origins.

When my whakapapa says that I am descended from Hinepūkohurangi the wahine of the mist, the colonised person inside of me says that this is only a story. That it does not fit the generally accepted story of my existence that tells me I came across the Pacific from Asia, and further back, from Africa.

I have heard people who can sling off, very casually, their whakapapa to famous tipuna of their iwi going back ten generations. They know the conscious inter-generational efforts that led to them being where they are. I have also heard people recite the whakapapa of all iwi in Aotearoa, explaining when and where we were all connected, weaving in the whakapapa of Maui, Kupe, and our atua into a narrative that affirms what it is to be Māori.

This is why I decided to start a whakapapa journey. Not just for my Māori side, but my Pākehā side too. My grandmother can rattle off 15 generations of our links back to Denmark, Scotland, and England. She has helped me as well, to find birth and death records for some of my whanau. My hapū still has blanks and many questions, such is the result of colonisation, historical hardship, the foster system, and family trauma. Sometimes finding these things can be a process of finding old family pain. However, it makes it a little less difficult to know who you are when you can figure out, at least somehow, how you came to be.

We are all a product of our environments. Looking around me can answer some of my own questions about how I came to be. When Hinepūkohurangi rises in Te Urewera in the morning, the whole valley is blanketed in a dense mist. The grass is wet, the river swells, and she blankets the maunga – her lover. Hinepūkohurangi for me is a fresh start when she rises on a cold morning. She represents the unknown – it requires a risk taker who can learn how to stay on track when you can’t see 30 cm in front of you. Her arrival means either leaving the house to venture into her dense mists, or staying inside, a time to kōrero and to nurture philosophical thought. These are the lessons and qualities I learn from Hinepūkohurangi, the whenua teaches us lessons just as our whānau do.

Elsdon Best wrote once of how astounding he found our expressions of whakapapa, that there were people who believed that they were descended from her in blood. Like many anthropologists and Western scientists, he dismisses them as myth only. His work is widely referenced by Māori and Pākehā alike. Nevertheless, Hinepūkohurangi is our parent, someone who has shaped the values and tikanga of Ngāi Tūhoe.

I got my first piece of tā moko recently, starting with a beautiful piece on my right wrist. It’s to acknowledge Pāpā, who passed away not long after I began my journey. I’ve learned a lot about whakapapa since I started on this ara, but the more I learn, the more I realise there is more knowledge within our people. I will begin by placing myself within that whakapapa, and slowly and methodically, like mahi raranga, I will piece together the narrative of who I am.

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